Mario and Nintendo had an extremely successful 2017, thanks to the release of Mario Odyssey on the Switch. But the fun doesn’t end there for the popular video game studio-or its lead mascot. It was confirmed today that the video game giant Nintendo will be partnering with Illumination Studios, the minds behind Despicable Me, Minions and the upcoming Grinch reboot, to give us a new film starring our favorite Italian plumber.

The news was revealed on the official Nintendo account late Wednesday night and confirmed that the film would be co-produced by Shigeru Miyamoto, the man who created Mario and other classic Nintendo characters,  and Chris Meledandri of Illumination Studios. The film, which currently has no casting information, director or release date, will be distributed by Universal Studios.

Fans would understandably be a bit worried about this information being revealed. Video game adaptions to the big screen haven’t exactly proven to be successful and the last feature length Mario film is considered to be the worst of the worst. Released back in 1993, the film starred Bob Hopkins in what could be described as his worst performance.  Heck, even the co-director of that film called the experience “hell” back in 2016.

It’ll be interesting to see how Illumination are going to tackle this. They know they have to be faithful to the fans, but Mario isn’t exactly a chatty fellow with a lot of character depth. Aside from a few catch phrases, Mario doesn’t speak. So bringing him and his brother Luigi to the big screen is potentially problematic. Diverting too much from the source material would only alienate fans. But with Miyamoto working as a producer, we know it should be more in line with the original vision of the character a lot of us have grown up with.

Interestingly, the tweet embedded above states that the producers and the studio are working on a film “starring Mario” as oppose to a straight up adaptation of a Mario tale. Perhaps we’re getting a whole new adventure with all new characters,  or classic Nintendo characters and Mario just so happens to be the main character. This would be much more interesting than a big screen adaptation of the Super Smash Brothers rescuing Princess Peach from the clutches of Bowser. Let’s hope that the studio and the filmmakers know that would be a lazy and poor adaption for the big screen. Perhaps Illumination will have something that’s more inline with Wreck-It-Ralph, a film that’s already made great use of the Mario license.

What do you think though? Are you excited for a video game film co-produced by the creator of the character? Or do you think it’s just not possible to get a faithful and well done video game adaption on the big screen? Let us know what you think and be sure to check out our other articles on the latest Halloween film and what could lie ahead for Infinity War!